Who do I speak to about setting up a mutual? How do I apply to set up a co-operative? Over the last few weeks, some people will be surprised to hear those are some of the most common questions I've been asked. Why? The answer is simple.

Up and down the country there is an immense amount of pent up frustration among literally thousands of frontline public sector workers. Just look at the sheer number of responses to our Spending Challenge. It unleashed a torrent of comments and ideas – around 63,000 in all – from public sector employees frustrated by the difficulty of actually implementing their suggestions.

They know their patch better than anyone; they are the experts, not officials sat in government departments. And they can see how things could and should be done better, how the gaps can be filled and services integrated so they really work for the people using them. But they haven't been able to do anything about it. Well, now they can.

Today, as part of our commitment to a "big society", where people are encouraged to stand up and do something about the problems they see, we have launched our first 12 Pathfinder mutuals projects.

They are very different in ambition and range: from NHS staff wanting to launch an employee-owned social enterprise to help homeless patients, to employees from local authorities getting together to form a mutual to deliver children's services, and further education colleges coming together to see if they can set up a new awarding body.

But they do all have certain things in common. At their heart are frontline public sector entrepreneurs ready to take control of the services they run. And there's often a common focus: the desire to join up the services they know so well so that they are actually designed specifically around their communities' needs, or so they can start using potential economies of scale to generate efficiencies. In a time when we need to save money we have to be ready to explore ideas like this.

We know this is not for everyone and it is not meant to be. But for those who do want to be pioneers and take those first steps to take over and deliver services, what today shows is that we are serious about supporting them. This is difficult stuff. You can't just talk, like people have in the past, about wanting more mutuals and co-ops and hope somebody, somewhere gradually gropes towards making it happen. You really need to push it.

That push will, in part, come from our mentors. We are not the only ones who think there is a need to champion the value of letting public sector workers take control of the services they run. All our Pathfinders will be mentored on issues ranging from business planning, financial modelling, workforce issues, tendering and procurement and how to build an entrepreneurial culture. And they will get this advice, for free, from the very best in this field.

Our list of mentors includes hugely successful businesses such as the John Lewis Partnership, which is probably the best known co-owned company, and KPMG, PWC and Tribal. But also organisations like the Baxi Partnership, who are specialists in enabling organisations to become employee-owned. And then there are the leading lights in this field, such as Margaret Elliot from Sunderland HomeCare.

This is not a one-size-fits-all approach. We do not expect every team to want to go for the same model. Some may want to be completely employee-owned, some may look for joint ventures and, of course, there will be some where it is in our financial interests for the government to keep a stake.

I believe that the potential for mutual spin-outs is enormously exciting. Today is just the start of what will become a genuinely ground-up movement, which will lead to a different kind of relationship between the state and the citizen – one where people feel they have the support to take more control over things that affect their families and communities.

The era of "big government" being the answer to everything is over. We plan to learn from these Pathfinders to inform our thinking and the plans of public sector workers who might want to set up on their own in the future. Just think, if only a fraction of those 63,000 people, who sent their ideas and comments in to our Spending Challenge are latent entrepreneurs, who itch to put their ideas into action, then our ambitions for public sector mutuals will be amply met.